Yup, pretty much what the title says. A few of these have been done for a little while now, but I've hesitated in posting them because, as a perfectionist, I hate them. It's a self loathing i usually experience after I work hard to make something just to realize I'm not terribly good at it. (basically, I'm new to video editing, my recording equipment sucks, and etc).

Think of these beginning tutorials as me getting my feet wet while I see what works, what doesn't, and all the rest presentation-wise.

Anyway, here they are. Tell me what I should elaborate on, if you feel I've left something totally out. Also, suggestions are nice (right now I'm going off of the poll I started a few months ago and am working on that stuff)

I'm planning on it. Currently writing up one on how practice is important in ways other than making you good at drawing specific things, and also writing one on how painting with a mouse doesn't suck (along with how to go about doing that).

Like i said earlier, my tutorials will get a bit more sophisticated as I make them. Thanks for the feedback!

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if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

there are somethings i would like to see, one of the key issues is trying to control or master the god damn tablet. Surely there are excercises or techniques to improve coordination (apart from just praciticing)

Theres a hell of a lot of things i want to ask, but i just have to find the questions first. Guess i'll work that out when i practice more.

I think another question is the process of drawing from rough sketch to detail, when to zoom out and when to zoom in. I try to draw a head sketch and most of the time i find myself making inaccurate sketches and when i try to refine the lines it just turns into a disaster or more messy smeared lines or simply unrecognisable.

Following is from a topic I made at MT forums about critiquing art using time lapsed video of one of my speedpaints; I think it's relevant to plug it in here because it explains some of the mental process I go through speedpainting generally (before, during, and after the painting) and how I vary my approach each time.

There are annotations in the video as well, explaining more clearly what I was doing/thinking while I was making it. Maybe someone will find this interesting.

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Speedpaint Video Walkthrough:
Ahhh! Too many words!

Speedpaint vids are fun to make; it's fun going back and rewatching myself mess up/lose sight of the bigger picture (I think of it like football players watching plays and stuff analyzing all the crap they did wrong). It also is cool because it helps people see a variety of processes and techniques rather quickly. One of the reasons I hardly edit my videos is because I want people to see how I work, both the good stuff and the bad stuff. I'm not really doing it to impress; i find something really interesting about watching the progression of a piece on video. It's like it's maleable and alive, which for whatever reason, really engages my brain.

Anyway, I wanted to share this last one I made. I have made quite a few videos before this, but I've attempted to critique this one (both in the way it ends up looking as well as the process of how I get there).

Nearly all of my speedpaints involve me experimenting with process. I used to subscribe to the idea that once you found a solid process, that was THE way to make something look cool. However, after sticking to various methods for awhile, I repeatedly found myself stagnating and getting terribly frustrated. It felt like backing myself into so many dead ends. So now, whenever I paint, I usually have specific agendas I want to achieve that I've never tried before (kind of like rules in a game).

I come up with these ideas like tangent thoughts, based off of what's worked or failed for me in the past. A lot of them come from observations I make during the day about how things look naturally. Changes to my approach also come from looking at other artists' work and trying to figure out how the blazes they construct their images. These are all usually guesses; little leaps of faith and testing personal theory.

Why speedpaints, though? Why not do these experiments in a more committed fashion? Well, the faster I can practice these ideas, the looser I'll be and the faster I'll learn (this doesn't exactly do me many favors when it comes to finalizing pieces; I've gotten used to drawing within a time frame of 1.5 hours and then moving on. So it's good to try stuff out, especially with a busy schedule, but forms a bad habit of non-commital art. Hence, the fact that I have a pretty small portfolio of 'finished' pieces. It's a bit of a problem for me.)

However, despite this bad side effect, the speedpainting approach works for me because I have a natural tendency to over plan, over stress, over exert, etc. I do that with everything. The limited sense of time doesn't give me the luxury of being too overindulgent with any specific idea or isolated area in the picture. A time limit is a rule that keeps my over complicated brain from betraying me.

Similarly, a lot of my other 'rules' form limitations that force me to keep things general and to have a proper sense of detachment so I'm not afraid to destroy something pretty that just isn't working. These rules are not absolutes. They may not work positively for everyone.

Preproduction:

Anyway, with all that said, here are the goals I had going into this specific piece:

1) Imply detail without being explicit using only one simple brush I've never used exclusively. (I normally stick to rounder more organic brushes; I've used the hard round pretty exclusively for the past few months without variation and it's bothered me)

2) Establish forms/mood/colors early and work off them. (something i normally try to do, but wanted to particularly stress it)

3) Layer strokes by using lower opacity than normal (30-70%). (Normally, I paint in a range of about 60%-100%; This was the biggest experimental rule I wanted to try out; the idea of implying complexity through overlaying shapes rather than explicitly spelling it all out. I wanted colors and shapes to show through each other like panes of layered glass...or at least that's how I thought of it).

4) No bull-crap color overlays for correction; working purely off color established in the beginning and establishing all colors from their combinations. (pretty much falls in line with rule 2)

I did not plan to paint a city, a ship, or a person; there was no subject, just these rules and the mood I was in (which ended up dictating value/color). I pretty much just dove in. Subject came from what I saw in the shapes/colors I laid down at the start, kind of like seeing a shape in a cloud. It just kind of happened on its own (although, its not that much of a stretch, drawing a city with a square non-organic brush; what would be very interesting is to try next time to convey the idea of something organic using the same approach, like a portrait of some kind).

Post Production
So based off my 'rules' how successful was I? Independent of the rules, how is the final image strong? How is it weak? Where can it go? Is it strong enough to be the foundation for a finished piece? Was there an area that I overworked that looked better earlier in the video?

These are questions I normally ask myself, especially when looking at process in video.

Here are my own post mortem thoughts:

-Background is working somewhat (there are instances where things need to be cleaned up/properly lightened to keep distance consistent).

-The building area directly underneath the ship still bothers me; i essentially slapped a bandaid on it then stopped drawing because I didn't want to overwork it. I had the sense that I was going a direction that wasn't good and that it would be best to stop and pick things up later.

-The sense of depth in regard to the city on the ground still bothers me. I would like to reference the way light plays off the edges of buildings in similar light conditions (ambient indirect; probably cloudy day type stuff). I'm also concerned that the value of the city on the ground may be too dark.

-I also think that I could push some cool red colors out, especially in the foreground, and make it visually interesting.

-Check my perspective on the ship. It's not too defined; side wings the reflect perspective perhaps? It's working somewhat, but my brain is detecting wonkiness!

Anyway, check out the video if you care to; im very interested to hear what others have to say regarding what it reveals about process (how it could improve/change), as well as what strengths I had earlier in the piece that ended up going overlooked. Thanks, and sorry about so many words. D:

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if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

Stunning. I never thought that my painting was done so differently. I used extreme spacing with extreme scattering with size jitter turned on to lay down the basic shapes. Lowering the percentages as I was working on more precise shapes. It was raher hard to control that way. You went on quite loosely in the beginning. Great job!